How does your child’s personality affect their study habits?

Teens and Study

When working with your child to find the best study plan for them during their exams their are many factors you need to think about but one that is often overlooked is who they are, how the operate and see the world – their personality of coarse. Knowing their personality is really important, because that means they’re going enjoy it more.

The tool I use to work with personality is The Enneagram it is a personality-typing tool that’s thousands of years old. I love it. A lot of parents and teenagers I have worked with love it. It’s a really great tool to use.

When it comes to exams, I’m just briefly going to go through it and say how each type would want to study.

You have nine types.

Personality 1 is the “perfectionist.”

Just like it says, these children want to get everything right. The parent of one of them is probably not going to have a problem getting their child to study. What they need to do is get their child to not study. Their child will probably doing too much studying constantly and make themselves ill. What the parent needs to be teaching this child is moderation and pacing, or they’re going to be totally burned out by time for the exam.

Personality 2 is the “helper.”

They are just like it says. They like to help people. If you want this child to enjoy their studying, they need to be interacting with other people. They would work best studying with a few of their friends. They like to be around people. They like the relationships. If they haven’t got that relationship while they’re studying, they’re going to find it really difficult.

Personality 3 is the “achiever.”

Again, they are probably going to be studying a lot. What they can do is bite off more than they can chew. They’d probably say “Oh, I’m going to be fine. I’m going to do six hours of studying a night.” You need to be realistic with this child. A really good way to help them study is to have them teach others. Achievers are really enrolled in other people’s success, as well as their own. If they can learn and teach others, I think that’s a great idea. If you can get a group of friends together and they each learn one piece then teach the others, you’ve got this whole community going on which would be great.

Personality 4 is the “romantic.”

These are the real drama queens of the Enneagram. They’re whimsical and dreamy. What you need to do with them is make sure you have allowed much more time than you think it’s going to take in whatever study table you set up. If
they have had something happen at school that’s hurt them, they won’t be able to study, because it’s so dramatic to them. You have to make allowances that this child may come home devastated about something and physically can’t study. You need to make sure there’s more study time in their schedule. If they’re not in the mood, they’re not going to be able to do it at all. You need to be creative with how they study.

Personality 5 is the “observer.”

They’re probably going to be okay as well. They’re going to be studying fine. They’ll study because they have really high principles. If you start to get competitive with this child, they’re going to switch off. They don’t like competition.
They actually don’t like being with people. They feel quite socially awkward. They want to be alone. They don’t want to know what anyone else is doing. They’re not competitive at all.

Personality 6 is the “questioner.”

They love learning. They’re going to really want to learn, but they lack anystructure. You’re going to have to work with this child and their planning. You’re going to know you’ve got a questioner, because they basically ask questions all the time and question their own decisions.

Personality 7 is the “adventurer,”

These children are the ones that find school the most difficult. If you want your adventurer to study, then it has to be interesting. Their study plan has to be flexible. For the parent that is not familiar with the Enneagram, the adventurer is going to be the risk taker of the zodiac. They’re always searching out a risk, always wanting the next best thing. They are very social children. If you tell them not to do something, they’re going to go and do it. Their study plan needs to be so flexible. Putting in what subject they study on what night is not going to work for this child. They’re going to say, “I’m not doing that. I don’t want to do that. I feel like doing geography tonight. I don’t want to do history.” A good thing you can do is have them pick out of a bowl what they’re going to study. They like the excitement of that, the excitement of not knowing. Don’t make their schedule too rigid or else they’re just going to buck against it.

Personality 8 is the “asserter.”

These children or personality types tend to have very good habits. They will learn to stick to routines. What they will really do is buck against everything. Asserters are the really aggressive signs of the zodiac. You know they’re there,
they take up space and they’re natural leaders. They get very angry easily. As a parent, what you’re going to have to do with this one is stick with them and be consistent with them. Even though they generally have good habits, because
they know this exam is something they haven’t made up, they’ll buck against it and become very opinionated about it.
You’ll need to check their work. They’ll tell you they’re doing it and not be. Make sure that their routine is absolutely solid and that you’re checking it, because they will wiggle and do anything to get out of it.

Personality 9 is the “peacemaker.”

These are the children that say, “I don’t mind, I’ll do what makes everyone else happy.” They tend to be the one that’s trying to sort out all the arguments. They will probably buckle down and get on with their studying. They don’t want any conflict with anyone, particularly you as their parent. You need to make sure they have a routine and structure.